


You'll sleep in clouds of fire

by Blanquette



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bingo, Character Death, HyungHyuk Bingo, M/M, One Shot, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 15:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15122429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: Hyungwon is a military police officer bringing in a deserter.





	You'll sleep in clouds of fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the "war" square of the HyungHyuk Bingo.  
> And what the heck have I done? I'm sorry. Finally got around to start it and this is what comes out? You can all kill me later.  
> Title is from the Interpol song "The Scale" I was listening to when I wrote this, and it is also heavily inspired by "Bleed from Within" by The Music so blame them.

**1.**

The MPO driving the jeep looks too young to even be in the army, Minhyuk thinks, tall and thin as if he’d bend under the slightest wind. Maybe that’s why they kept him there, tucked safe and sound behind the front lines while cannon fodder such as himself gets torn to pieces by enemy shrapnel a few miles south.

The handcuffs rest uncomfortably against his wrists and he shifts, trying to find a position where they’re not so much digging into his skin. The road cuts the valley in half and the mountain range surrounding them would look beautiful, it really would, if only Minhyuk didn’t know what awaited him at the end of the line. So he closes his eyes against the last rays of sunshine crowning the mountains in fire and tries to get accustomed to the dark.

 

**2.**

Hyungwon always pictured deserters to be ugly, pitiful beings, shriveled up and whimpering, scared silly by their own cowardice. Enemies of the state. Worse than the other side, really, because they were betrayers. But the man sitting beside him is none of that. He holds his head high, a bruise forming on a high cheekbone acquired during his arrest, stark against his fair skin. He looks delicate, almost fragile, but there’s a quiet tension simmering under his skin that betrays the strength of his body, if the service records Hyungwon painstakingly read didn’t speak enough of his prowess in combat. He’s striking, really, but most of all it’s the deep sadness etched into his features that disturbs Hyungwon. It makes him look so much older than his years, and he’s quiet, too quiet, the light snuffed out of him when it should have been burning bright.

There had been no bargaining, after that initial fight for freedom. The man had accepted his sentence with resignation, even while the military tribunal had admonished him for being a traitor and a coward. He had kept his stance straight, and it had seemed to Hyungwon that he was the most dignified being in that too big room, the only one worth anything amongst those self-righteous officers who were legitimizing sending their own to their deaths with speeches of patriotism and glory. So Hyungwon drives, slightly slower than he really should, and he watches the sun sets in clouds of fire, wondering about the dead man sitting next to him.

 

**3.**

The night air feels almost too heavy upon his shoulders when Hyungwon gets out of the jeep. The ride to the prison had been too long and too short, his skin crawling, hyperaware of every movements the man next to him had made. The prisoner had stayed quiet all along, a faraway look on his face, and Hyungwon wonders what kind of thoughts a man in his position could be having. Regrets? Anguish? It all seems too futile for someone awaiting death in the morning.

The cell they are led too is not much larger than a pantry, with a simple cot and nothing else, and the man quietly sits on it as the barred door clangs shut behind him. The officer overseeing the procedure sends a curious looks Hyungwon’s way; it’s unusual that a MPO would stay after handing over his charge. But Hyungwon’s throat feels dry and his head is swimming and he just cannot leave like this, not when the man is looking at him with something akin to curiosity, not when he feels something important might come to pass in this awful place if only he’d let it, if only he’d give it time. So he waves the officer away, and the man leaves with a small smile on his lips, misunderstanding, probably. Hyungwon isn’t here to hurt, to take revenge for an imaginary slight. Hyungwon is here to understand.

He takes a few steps, rests his hands on the cold metal bars, and the prisoner cocks his head to the side, waiting. Hyungwon cannot look directly at him, so he lets his eyes fall to his feet instead, scuffed combats boots that should have been renewed months ago. His voice sounds strange in the heavy silence that surrounds them, and he has to repeat his question for it to be heard. When he looks up, there’s a small smile stretching the prisoner’s lips. It makes him look so much younger. Too young to be here, really, sitting on a dirty cot in the dark, the last place he’ll ever see.

“Why did… why did you do it?”

There’s a shrug, a helpless kind of laugh.

“I thought I could get away with it. I’m not the only one. Sometimes the mountains can hide you enough until you guys give up. You didn’t, this time. I was unlucky.”

“That’s not… That’s not what I meant.”

The prisoner licks his lips, and the smile fades. There’s something else in his face, something old and weary that Hyungwon has seen a million time on a million different faces.

“Have you been to the frontline?”

Hyungwon shakes his head, and the prisoner nods as if he already knew.

“They give you a gun and tell you to take a life. And you do, because it seems like the right thing, because if you don’t, you’re the one that will end up bleeding in the mud. But it isn’t right. And I’m not willing to do that anymore.”

“But… They’re attacking us. It is right. We’re only defending what’s ours.”

The prisoner cocks his head again, too long hair falling into his eyes, and the smile is back, slightly amused. In this moment he seems to hold all the answers; Hyungwon cannot take his eyes off him.

“Did they? It’s been going on for so long no one really knows how it started anymore. So much destruction, for what? In another cell in another country two soldiers exactly like us are having the exact same conversation right now. One will die in the morning and one will go on, and both their life and their death will have been meaningless. I’d like to know what I’m fighting for, before I die. No one can tell me. I don’t want my death to be meaningless. I don’t want to take part in this anymore.”

“But you will still die.”

“So I will still die. But I will have chosen it, at least, I think. Have you ever made a choice? One that wasn’t forced upon you.”

Hyungwon looks back down, at the dirty floor, and he tries, he really tries to remember how he ended up here, what choices did he make that could have changed his destiny, and he realizes there was none. He was set on a path and went along with it because it was the right thing to do, because people with shiny medals on their chest told him he had to.

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?”

It’s unexpected, a question this mundane in a place like this, in circumstances such as those. Hyungwon answers it all the same.

“Chae Hyungwon. I’m from, I’m from Gwangju.”

“Lee Minhyuk, but I guess you already knew.”

Hyungwon did so he nods, and there’s a tentative smile suddenly playing at his lips that Minhyuk answers with one of his own. It’s a tad unreal, really, this isn’t a place for smiling, but Minhyuk looks bright and he’s beautiful and Hyungwon wonders if they could have been friends, maybe, in some other time. It’s a silly thought and he’s slightly ashamed of it, but it’s still there at the back of his mind. He wants to know this person, he wants to know what he would have been like, if there hadn’t been a war to make him a soldier. It doesn’t make sense, that this person should be locked in here by his own side, it doesn’t make sense that he should die in the morning. Maybe Hyungwon sees what the prisoner means, now. A meaningless life, and a meaningless death.

“Why are you crying?”

Hyungwon didn’t know that he was and hastily wipes at his cheeks. He’s sorry, he really is, there’s something at the core of his being that is infinitely sad and the unfairness of it all almost chokes him. So he cries, because there is nothing else to be done.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry I’m crying. I don’t seem able to stop.”

“It’s okay.”

There’s a hand reaching through the bars and Hyungwon takes it. Minhyuk’s warm when Hyungwon expected cold and somehow it grieves him even more. Minhyuk is warm and fearless and they’re going to kill him, they’re going to kill him in the morning. Hyungwon is crying still and there’s a hand in his hair pulling him closer, his forehead pressing against the bars.

“It’s okay, hey, it’s okay, I knew it could end like this, and I still did it. It’s okay, Hyungwon-ah. It’s okay.”

Hyungwon shakes his head and he should say something, but there is nothing to be said to dead men. He grips the hand tighter, maybe touch can serve where words are failing. They both sink to the floor, and the night is still young, but it will never be enough when it’s the last one there is.

 

**4.**

Minhyuk is warm and fearless and he cocks his head to the side when he focuses to listen. His voice is a bit husky and there’s something desperate in his bright eyes when he clutches at Hyungwon’s wrist as if he could pull him through the bars, and Hyungwon wishes he could, wishes he could pull him through; he’d hide him within himself where it’s safe, and they’d disappear, somewhere where they don’t sacrifice you for wanting out of hell.

There’s something they’re trying to create here, between them, but there’s heavy metal bars and not enough time, there’s the sounds of hard boots on a concrete floor in the small hours of the morning, tentative rays of sunshine that spell an end they’re not ready for. Hyungwon thinks he’s the one who’s not going to make it. Minhyuk has a wild look in his eyes and he grabs at his collar to bring him closer still, and his lips taste like salt and fear, and that’s all, that’s all there is for them. The night cannot provide shelter any longer.

 

**5.**

Hyungwon insists on watching Minhyuk die. They let him.

They tie him to a post and when a soldier goes to cover his eyes Minhyuk shakes his head, and he stares straight ahead as the firing squad gets into position. Time stretches, Hyungwon sees everything in slow motion. He’s not inhabiting his body anymore, he’s sinking through the earth, but he’s firmly planted on the ground still, eyes boring holes in Minhyuk’s beautiful face, and Minhyuk sees him, and Minhyuk smiles, and there’s a barked order and a deafening sound and Minhyuk seems to fold on himself like grass under the wind and he’s bleeding, he’s bleeding, he’s bleeding and his eyes turn to glass and Hyungwon’s chest is ripped open just as Minhyuk’s was; he’s bleeding from within and nobody can see, nobody can see, and Minhyuk is dead. Minhyuk is dead.

 

 


End file.
